Currently, I am working on a variety of different things all at once (presentations, publications, job applications). I have not posted here as much due to these activities and some, like job applications, are not very exciting things to discuss on the blog. However there are a couple of concepts and ideas that are worth briefly discussing, in the hopes that it will motivate me to devote more time to them in the coming months. So, here are a couple of topics swimming in my head right now…

Porticoes: I have two upcoming presentations that I am working on (details here). Originally, I had planned to write two completely separate papers on different aspects of my work (motivating me to write and formulate more particular approaches, ideas, etc). Instead, the two presentations will draw on case studies of porticoes from Ostia. In preparing these presentations, I keep returning to the experienced difference of portico architecture within the social space of streets. At a basic level, the portico is shaded and separated from the street. In auditory terms, the portico and street are different auditory fields, however the two fields influence each other. When the acoustic properties of street canyons are modelled, in instances where porticoes exist, the properties show a marked progression towards the acoustic properties of Ostia’s main street, the decumanus. In a way, certain streets approach the auditory character of the decumanus with the addition of porticoes. The chronology further emphasises the experienced character of the space, which is replicated to various degrees in other places across the city. Streets that could never reach the scale of the decumanus are able to mimic its auditory experience through more controlled and smaller scale developments. I will be testing some of these ideas this next week, when I present in Kiel, Germany.

Embodiment: Several books, lectures and writings have brought embodiment back to the forefront of what I am doing. I picked up Terry Eagleton’s new book, Materialism, and he makes a case for the importance of embodiment in Marx, as well as other forms of materialism. Tied into the emphasis on embodiment is the role of the senses as ways of measuring urban space or embodiment as site of particular forms of knowledge gleaned from the senses. These are not new ideas for me, but they are beginning to crystallise in particular ways (as well as focusing my generally scattered interests). Much of these ideas will appear in my presentations coming up, although they are primarily in the background and theory behind the presentations.

Finally, street cries: Street noise is one of the primary topics in my work and one that I continue dig into. After the winter holidays, I read through a series of books on Paris in the 18th and 19th century. Street criers, sellers and vendors were a part of the landscape of the city in that period and changes to the architecture of Paris were expressed in relation to street noise. There are some parallels with the ancient world, although comparisons need to be cautiously approached. What I find most useful, however, is the theoretical implication of much of this work, which builds bridges between social, political and economic aspects of the senses and their spatial settings. In short, as the topography of Paris changes, the sensorium likewise changes; these shifts produce different social, political and economic spatialities. Rome, I would argue, undergoes parallel changes in many ways. To say that architectural changes that alter the topography of Rome change the experience of the city is obvious. However, what need further study are the particularities of these changes.

How did the addition of porticoes change the way sellers utilised street space? What are the economic implications? Or social? Or political, for that matter? Do street traders change tactics in response to the development of porticoes along streets? Some of these questions have begun to be addressed in various ways. Sarah Bond’s new book, Trade & Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean, address aspects of social stigmas towards criers and auctioneers (praeco). In particular, Bond emphasises the changing nature of such social stigmas from the late Republic to late antiquity. The emphasis on changing stigmas, parallels my own interest in changing urban forms. In a different context, Arjan Zuiderhoek, in The Ancient City (part of the Key Themes in Ancient History series), discusses (briefly) street sellers in terms of a wider understanding of ancient cities. Zuiderhoek covers a similar longue durée of ancient history, although he highlights continuity in city formations, focusing instead more on the archaeological material and current debates. Both are recent publications, which highlight some of the areas for further investigation.

Hopefully, in the coming months some of these ideas will formulate into even more coherent research agendas, possible publications and further blog posts. In the meantime, it’s back to presentation prep and editing a chapter due by the end of the month…